10 Emotional Star Trek Moments That Made The Fans Cry
Androids, turn on your emotion chips; EMHs, update your subroutines! There will be tears!
From the lighter moments to the hard-hitting sci-fi fare to the Move Along Homes, Star Trek has stirred in us a full array of emotions over the decades and continues to do so. In one bingeworthy sitting, we can go from joy to jaw-drop; funny to fear. Then, at times, Trek simply ramps up the settings to 'ugly cry' and phasers us right in the feels.
The franchise owes its endurance in large part to the strength of its characters who we come to empathise with, love, or even hate. It's doubtful you needed to dry your eyes over Dukat or Khan's demise — each to their own, I suppose — but the deaths on this list will surely have you weeping. For the other moments with our favourite characters, we were either sobbing along at their success or sharing in their heartbreak.
Behind each character also lies a talented performer — blessed as we are in Trek with skilful actors — who often draw on their own lives for the emotion required or, conversely, are just as affected as the fans by the story.
So, replicate yourself a box of tissues and some comfort food as we relive 10 moving Star Trek moments that made us cry.
10. [ Baby Gurgling And Crying ]
Voyager returns home to fanfare and fireworks, flying over the Golden Gate Bridge. Psych! Those were decade-old images from a news report, and this timeline is about to be rewritten faster than you can say "thanks for your help, Admiral Janeway".
If Endgame's faux beginning tugged, however briefly, at our heartstrings, its final scenes did an entire emotional number on us. For all those fans as invested in the journey and the destination as the Voyager crew themselves, we finally got to see them make it back to Earth. You'd be forgiven for shedding a tear or two as Captain Janeway exclaims "we did it," or as she asks "Mr Chakotay" to take the helm before giving that seven-year-defining order for the last time. It was a call to the bridge from The Doctor that really got us going, though.
Tom Paris had a difficult upbringing and turbulent first foray into adulthood — he was expelled from Starfleet Academy, joined the Maquis and had been sentenced to prison for treason before he met Captain Janeway. Aboard Voyager, he began to thrive, notably in his relationship with B'Elanna Torres who had equally faced struggles in life.
As Voyager arrived back in the Alpha Quadrant, Tom and B'Elanna's personal journey reached a new height. There was (a tiny) new someone in sickbay who "wanted to say hello," or, as the subtitles give it: "[ baby gurgling and crying ]". The couple were now parents, and we couldn't help crying along with the new-born.